Dia 29 Making progress

Finally, finally, finally I was able to accomplish tasks in this crazy country!

First, I went to the Sky Air office and booked a ticket ($120 USD) for one third the price of LAN airlines.  Then I went to the supermarket and got a box and tape.  Next, post office to ship stuff home that I am not using.  Afterwards, I went to the climbing shop (1 of 2 in all of southern Chile).  I was actually able to replace my nalgene bottle that I left in the taxi from the airport in Buenos Aires on my first day.  Of course, it cost me, but I am ok with that at this point.  Life without Nalgene is exceedingly difficult.

Having not heard back from Marisol-the-travel-agent in Punta Arenas since Sunday, I called her via Skype.  She said, "oh, you´re Tracy´s friend".  A good sign.  She said she would take care of everything and would send me an e-mail.  I was so thankful, I asked her if I could bring her anything from Puerto Varas.  "Chocolate?"  I inquired.  "Si, si, me gusta mucho" Marisol responded.  Sometimes it helps to grease the skids a little.  I am not above a little encouragement (bribery).

It is raining off and on which does not bode well for doing laundry.  There are no self service places here and since I have so many technical clothes that need to be hung to dry, I would have to tell them not to dry anything.  Because it is rainy, I could have to wait a long time for my clothes to dry.  Maybe in Punta Arenas.

Thenext item on the docket is deciding whether to climb Osorno tomorrow.  My flight isn´t until 9:30 pm. The forecast looks good and the climb should only take 6 hours plus travel to and from.

Dia 28 Chiloe

I simply could not face another day of making plans and figuring stuff out, so Anya and I booked a tour for $65 to the island of Chiloe.  It was raining anyway and looking at churches in Chiloe seemed to be a good thing to do.

I was thrilled to simply be a tourist and not have to think.  I caught the little tour bus at 8:00 a.m. and we headed for the ferry.  Marcelo, our tour guide, was how shall I say it?  Flamboyant.  He was very nice, but everyone else spoke Spanish, hence most of the info was given in Spanish.  Marcelo spoke slowly so I could understand most of it.  We toured lots of old wooden churches with fascinating architecture.  We learned that they built them without nails!  Interestingly, the churches had some of the ugliest art inside.  Is it blasphemy to say the virgin Mary was sinfully ugly (and literally made of plastic)?  The beauty of the churches was not commensurate with the hideous icons inside.

We went to one feria artesenal (craft fair) very briefly.  Chiloe is known for its wool and I bought a sweater.  Why not?

The best part was the lunch conversation.  Our motley crew of 9 was very international: a couple from Andalusia, 2 men (couple?) from Brazil, a couple from Buenos Aires, 2 germans, and me. 

 We learned that building a church is similar to building a boat.  The same principles apply and a church is more or less like a boat turned upside down.  Go figure!

 The ferry ride over to Chiloe.

 A young boy entertains us with his squeeze box while we look at a church.

 Chiloe is known for its palafitos (houses on stilits).

 Some church I can´t rember the name of.  Saint somebody of somewhere.

It was a full day.  I got home and once more failed to get reservations on sky air.  Damn damn damn.  I was getting crabby and knew I needed a fix of beef and wine.  It makes everything better.  I was happy that my favorite parilla which had been closed for 3 nights was open.  However, when Anya got there before me, they said they could seat us until 10:30.  I showed up and charmed my way in with my waiter from the other night.  I passionately explained that I needed lomo vetado (sirloin steak).  I was much happier after dinner.

Dia 27 Frustration!

This day was almost to frustrating to recount.   I mean really grim.  I still have bad back pain from bicycling the other day that I can´t shake off which is contributing to the foul mood.  The weather sucked too. I spent 5 hours working on a plane reservation.  Sky Air is $200 cheaper than LAN.  However, foreigners cannot use credit cards with Sky Air, only PayPal.  Paypal put a security block on my account presumably because I am in Chile.  It took a 45 minute Skype call from my iPhone while pirating wifi in front of a closed restaurant, sitting on a curb, in the rain.  They lifted the block.  I again tried to book a flight online, but kept getting error messages.  Argggh.  I don´t know which company the problem is with.  Again, beacuse of the holiday on Saturday, everything was closed on Sunday.  Drat!  I went to a locutorio to call Sky Air, after 30 minutes, I learned nothing new, but had to listen to the worst hold music ever.  Think Phillip Glass.  I got so pissed off that I accidentally ripped the phone out of the wall.  Oops.

Having made no progress, I was really close to tears (of frustration).  I sat down and sketched out an itinerary for Punta Arenas, Puerto Natales, and the Torres circuit using info I found on the internet and info from fellow travellers.  I then contacted a travel agent named Marisol (www.aonikenk.com) who came highly recommended by friends.  Things get very busy down south and I have been having mounting concerns that I will not have a place to sleep or eat.  Marisol e-mailed me back that it shouldn´t be a problem.  I felt a little better.

Realizing that I couldn´t accomplish anything else, I took more anti-inflamatories and hopped on a bus to visit the German village of Frutillar.  It was good to get out and go somewhere.  Photo is of the opera house in Frutillar.

New Years Day: another little adventure

Today everything is closed in Chile.  Evidently, this is a bigger deal than x-mas, which normally I would support this idea, but I needed to figure out a way around it to go out and do something. 

The original plan was to take a bus to Puerto Montt and take another bus to Correntoso to access a trek in Parque Nacional Alerce Andino.  When we got to Puerto Montt at by 8:30 a.m., we found out the holiday schedule is for one bus to Correntoso at 12:30.  We were advised about an alternate access point from the town of Lenca that has regular hourly service all day.  However, this access involved a 7 km hike up a road just to get to the park entrance.  No problem I thought; I´ll hitch hike.  Well after 5 km uphill in the direct sunlight, we managed to hitch a ride.  I should mention that the walk was actually pleasant as it was pretty country and a good dirt road.

The hike took us through Alerce forest which are very similar to Sequoias. 

I had no problem convincing an Italian family that they should drive us back down the hill.  We retraced our steps with the 2 buses which go over the Carreta Austral through some pretty scenery.  The last hurdle of the day was finding a restaurant in Puerto Varas that was actually open.  Although we managed to get decent service, the food was horribly mediocre, but at least I was able to get food.

Dia 26 New Years Eve

I woke up feeling a little flustered this am. It can be really challenging to plan itineraries and execute them. I am staying in yet another tourist town, though beautiful, but it is hard to do things on my own. Things are very expensive and it is difficult to get good info. Mostly people want you to take their tour and charge you a lot for it. I'm a do it yourselfer!

My angst was some what mitigated over coffee with Anya and Victor. Victor had some great suggestions!  He recommended catching abus to Petrohue, checking out the cascades, and hiking the Solitario trail (6 km).  Away we went!  As you can see it was abolutely lovely except maybe for the tabanos (horse flies) which followed us everywhere.

 Fuscia plants grow wild here.  They remind me of my mother, because dad always bought her a fuscia plant for mother´s day from all of us.  So, I think about my mom a lot here when I see these flowers.  I posted this picture today, because it is my mom´s birthday.  Happy Birthday mom!

 Saltados de Petrohue with Volcan Osorno in the distance

I still have no plans for this eve, but maybe a steak dinner!  We are now working out our plans for tomorrow.  We are hoping to catch a bus to Correntoso to hike in Parque Nacional Alerce Andino.  Everything will be closed tomorrow (you should have seen the lines at the supermarket!), so hopefully the buses will still be running.

 Feliz Ano Nuevo!

And to Brett and Val, congratulations on your engagement!  I always wanted a sister!  Please send pics of the ring.

Dia 25 Puerto Varas

I got an early start today. I lugged all my crap across town to the bus station to catch an 8:00 am bus. Thankfully, Anya came with, so she could watch my stuff while I was able to procure instant coffee and a sopapilla from a local stand for the 5 hour trip.

I arrived in Puerto Varas at 2:00 under partly cloudy conditions, but could still see the tops of the 2 Volcanos, Osorno and Across Lago Llanquihue which the town is situated on. The new hostel, called Casa Azul, is German run. The rooms are nicer and more quiet than Ecole, but I am sharing with 3 others. People seem very friendly, in my age bracket, but none seem that adventurous.

After getting settled in, i walked into town to get my bearings and find out info about climbing Osorno. I got lucky again. There were two gringos sitting outside of the tour company who worked there and we chatted for a while. They suggested a guide who did contract work for them but who is starting his own company and is guiding under the table. Victor showed up and was psyched to have someone to climb with. He's still new to the area. We agreed to climb Osorno possibly on Sunday and potentially some other routes. He lent me a bike and we did a two hour tour of the area around Puerto Varas. It was really neat and I got a lesson in local culture, flora, and fauna. We even saw some parrots flying about.  La palabra del dia es amigable and amintoso = friendly.

There is a nice kitchen and dining area here at the hostel and most people seem inspired to eat in.  Not me!  I went out to a late dinner because I didn´t get back from my ride until after 9:00.  Note that this was not a late dinner by Chilean standards.  For the first time since Buenos Aires, I wfound myself dining alone in a Parilla.  It was actually quite nice and the sirloin steak was pure heaven!

Dia 23 Volcan Lanin

 The day dawned early.  On very little sleep from the noisy and extremely hot hostel, I dragged myself out of bed and got ready for a gruelling day of drudgery.  Volcan Lanin is 3,776 meters high and I think the starting point is somewhere around 1,100 meters.  For us Americans, that´s over 8,000´of elevation gain!

My guide, Rodrigo picked me up, as arranged, at 4:00 a.m. for the 1.25 hour drive.  We put in at 5:35 a.m.  When I looked up at the nasty pile of volcanic rubble and scree, I thought what the hell did I sign myself up for?

 But then I turned around and saw the view across the valley.  In this photo, you can see a peak that´s called something like tooth of the devil on the left and Las Panetas (rock climbing) on the left in the early mourning light.

 It took us nearly 4 hours and 4000´or so of elevation gain to reach the first small snow finger.  This was followed by more crappy rock.  Though my guide didn´t speak much English, I think he understood my expletives when we would round over another rise and I would see more crappy rock.  Nonetheless, I plodded on in a slow, even pace.  The last 600 plus meters were actually interesting.  It was a mix of rotten snow, crappy rock, ice, and water.  There wasn´t anything technical, butdefinitely attention getting.  One wouldn´t want to make a mistake.  I felt really tired and down in the last hour.  I guess the guide sensed thisand he asked if I wanted to turn around.  This was all I needed to hear because I summoned up all my strength and in my best spanish responded with ¨F@#% no!¨  Then I put on crampons and plodded up to the top.

 We topped out after 8:20 hours. And I was happy with the time. The views were tremendous!  Villarica and Quetripillan (sp?) are in the distance!

This view was on the Argentine side.  The best use of the guide was that he knew where every patch of snow and every scree gully was located, though I am guessing that his GPS was the real hero.  We skied down on our heels and dropped over 8000´ in 4 hours.  Not bad!  Rodrigo has the head for the barn door syndrome worse than I do.  Though I will say, the last hour down was as bad as the last hour on the way up.  I was over heating big time.  It was much hotter at the lower elevation around 90 degrees and I was getting a headache from the heat combined with the exertion. I recieved encouragement from an unikely place...tabanos.  These are horseflies.  They swarm and bite.  Even worse, I hear they are attracted to the color blue, which of course, I was wearing.  I moved as fast as I could to the truck, but the damn things kept pace with me.  I have never had any flies follow me that far!

Surprisingly, I was not that tired or hungry really afterwards.  I actually felt pretty good when I joined Tracy for dinner at Latitude 39 and even had a glass of wine back at the hostel.